Spinstands are used for multiple purposes with respect to disk media, including disk media characterization, testing, and development. In order to perform such operations, they require accurate and precise positioning of read-write heads at various track offsets for the purposes of reading and writing to disks. Additionally, though most measurements on a spinstand write at offset 0, certain measurements also require accurate and precise positioning of the head at off-track positions for writing. Accordingly, positioning of a head for spinstands is facilitated by using a servo in combination with servo marks (also known as “servo patterns”) in a closed-loop system. The servo marks are written in small sectors on each disk and are used to accurately position the head at different read or write offsets.
Unfortunately, the quality of the servo patterns can greatly affect the repeatability of some essential measured results from spinstands. In general, the head positioning of a conventional servo in a spinstand (e.g., from Guzik Technical Enterprises) varies over a range of read or write offsets and is not repeatable from servo-to-servo write. Furthermore, though approaches to improve head positioning accuracy have been developed (e.g., Guzik Servo Improvement Package), such solutions suffer from drawbacks, such as a significant increase in operation time of the spinstand.